Information technology provides access to a vast source of information. One of the difficulties in locating and navigating that information, however, is the inconsistent or inconvenient way in which that information is often organised and presented. In particular, it is difficult to quickly appreciate how one source of information is related to another, identify the relevant sources, and to navigate between those sources in a logical and intuitive manner.
Hypertext documents are an example of one form of presenting information for which navigation and visualizing relationships can be troublesome. Websites such as Wikipedia (on the World-Wide-Web at wikipedia.org) and Freebase (on the World-Wide-Web at freebase.com), for example, comprise large collections of interrelated pages or articles each comprising information on a particular topic. That information in many cases is commonly arranged into a plurality of sub-topics. In many cases, detailed information on each sub-topic will alternatively or additionally be provided in a separate page or article dedicated to that sub-topic. A hyperlink to the dedicated sub-topic page will therefore commonly be provided in the body of the parent topic page.
In navigating such information sources, it is commonly necessary to depart from the original topic page to obtain the required information from one or more other distinct yet related pages. However, each sub-topic is often a legitimate topic in its own right, with hypertext links both to and from other related topics. Accordingly, it may not be possible or practical to arrange the information in a strictly hierarchical fashion, for example, to enable the logical navigation of the related pages using an index, table of contents, site map, or other such outline or summary of topics and sub-topics, as might be convenient for a particular user. Rather, such data sources more commonly have a “flat” structure navigated by searching for the initial topic and following hyperlinks to related topics or sub-topics. To find the required information, the user may be required to follow several hyperlinks which may involve trial and error. The user thus invariably relies on the history of their Web browser to go “back” to a previous page before following another hyperlink, and may become waylaid or distracted by unrelated pages.
Legislation is another example of a source of information which can be difficult to navigate. Provisions of legislation may be arranged into a plurality of parts, sub-parts, sections, sub-sections, paragraphs and the like, with provisions often referring to other areas of the legislation. One provision may comprise a reference to another related provision and/or include words defined elsewhere in the legislation, for example. Accordingly, upon reading one provision it is often necessary to refer momentarily to another to fully understand the meaning, context, or effect of the provision. A table of contents is of limited value in such circumstances, and there is presently no convenient means for quickly and logically navigating the legislation, and in particular providing a visual indication of the relationships between different provisions of the legislation.
Existing systems for visually representing data are generally specifically adapted for visually representing a particular type of data or limited to operating with a specific data source. Such systems are inflexible and cannot be easily adapted for use with other types of data or for compatibility with different data sources, and provide only limited, if any, scope for customisation or extension, in particular for end-users who may be unfamiliar with the required programming techniques and/or may not have access to the source code.
Accordingly, there is a need for an improved interface for presenting information which visually indicates the relationship and enabling intuitive navigation between related topics, and in particular a system which can be easily customized.